Red Blues
by Rothan488
Summary: Based on real events. A pilot changes sides during a war, but all doesn't go according to plans.


Rothan488 looked up to the ceiling as the first of the strikes hit the outside of the station. It could be felt right through to the medical wing where he had come to visit his corporation leader.  
"They're coming." Gillitt said as he lay on the bed of life support wires that had been connected to his flight ports. "Seems you were right Rothan."  
"We need to leave now. Quit this lame alliance and take the corp to one of the blocks. I know people in Darkness of Despair. I can get us in today. You just need to flick the swi…"  
Another blast rocked the station and the artificial gravity horizon momentarily. Dust poured down from between ceiling tiles above.  
"We can't go now. This hellcamp will pass eventually. You're our top pilot Rothan. One of the top pilots in this Alliance. Be ready to fight."  
"This alliance will pay the price for it's lack of vision, and so will we if we stay."  
Gillitt began to cough as more turret fire vibrated through the station, but he managed a few more words.  
"Go now. Jump clone out if you have to and bring in some bigger ships."  
"I won't be able to muster a decent enough fleet to make a dent, that's the problem." Rothan said and took his wrist in a handshake. "Goodbye, old friend."  
With that Rothan turned and strode out of the medical ward and then the wing. Impacts crashed and rang all around him as he left the familiar faces of his corporation and alliance behind. They scampered and clambered around not really achieving a great deal, but then with a hell-camp forming on the undock there wasn't much to be done but wait or flee.  
Their alliance had stayed too long and too quiet in this part of space, trapped in a pipe of stars that would at this moment be becoming camped at each stargate. It was a trap for the weak and lazy, a trap that was now being sprung upon them.  
Rothan strode down to the wing containing the living quarters and made his way across the empty carpet of the corridors to his own wing. Nobody was coming this way because nobody else was planning on launching a ship into the hellcamp. Nobody except Rothan, who had his own plan in motion.  
He entered his quarters and used the holographic operating system to access the medical services, then using them to transfer his death clone to a station in low sec space. Should all else fail and he be blown to a million embarrassing pieces he would at least be revived outside of this warzone, and closer to where he needed to be.  
From there he walked out onto the gangway to his ship in dock dropping his trousers and shirt behind him. They blew over the side and away into the depths of the docking bays as he stepped naked toward the end of the walkway. A Nemesis stealth bomber spun slowly above and so without further hesitation he stepped down into his escape pod and let the snaking life support cables find the ports in his naked body, the last one covering his mouth. Once connected it tugged him back into the confines of the metallic egg and as the door shut before him, and the protective fluid filled the remainder of the space.  
The sounds of the impacts, now right outside their wing were muffled by the fluid and then he was in a familiar world as controls and holographic screens presented themselves before him.  
Quickly he tapped through the menus and windows to check the local chatter, which was starting to fill up with the childish garbage of the invaders, and then the fleet window, flagging it for fleets available to his own alliance, finding as he expected, nothing. Lastly he checked his cargo hold, where he had placed all items he deemed too valuable to be left in the station when the invaders eventually take it, and lock him out. Others would be waiting until after the station had been taken and then try to sneak out when the camp had dispersed, but he didn't have that kind of time. Rothan, their top scoring murderer was leaving the alliance. He had become so disillusioned by their stagnation that was now prepared to leave his corp and all of his friends behind, in the gamble of finding a new home more to his liking. Being a top killer he had a number of options available to him, but only if he could get out of this solar system with the expensive blueprints and implants in the cargo bay. They were worth far too much to replace, and had taken far too long grinding bounties and missions to redo it all again. He'd need money to set up operations in a new alliance, so this was the only way.  
There was a 90% chance of being killed on the undock during a hellcamp, but Rothan knew of a strange quirk of physics that would allow him to possibly speed out of the warp disruption bubble, but as with most things in New Eden it was all about timing.  
He watched from the dock for a ship passing by toward the undock. Just one would do to take the targeting attention away from himself for just the split second he needed.  
"Come on lemmings…" he muttered, and then saw it, a megathron and a harpy gliding by his dock.  
The megathron battleship would sit on the undock and troll them with its thick tank before redocking at a low armour. The harpy however was dead meat.  
"Perfect."  
Rothan set the ship to undock and slid into the lane behind the two ships. As the other two passed out into space they became engulfed in a barrage of fire from the swarms of red ships all around.  
As he passed outside and into the milky warp distruption field Rothan pressed his microwarp then quickly pressed the cloak afterwards. Through a strange quirk of physics the microwarp remained active for a cycle while the ship remained cloaked, and took him clear of the nearest ships and then a moment later he was clear of the field. Quickly he engaged his warp drive and took off as the harpy and the megathron both exploded behind him.

It was a hell camp alright, by the massive amount of CFC and related alliances that seemed to come out of the woodwork at just the wrong times. They and the station sank away into the darkness with a final hiss of static electricity and fire as the long pressure began on the small renter alliance and its members.  
Rothan slid out of warp into a ping above one of the two gates available. Each would take him along a direction of the pipe of stargates, and both would be becoming camped like crazy with each passing second. So again he waited and watched from behind his cloak.  
Eventually a stray Vexor Navy Issue popped out of warp and lemminged through the stargate without a second thought or care. Rothan quickly warped down to the gate and followed the Vexor close behind.  
On the other side was a massive camp of Caracals and interdictors. Hictors had placed broad warp fields here and so it was almost impossible to outrun them even with a nice distraction such as the Vexor. Rothan remained cloaked, as did the Vexor as small tackle began circling close by for a de-clock bump.  
One of them came too close by and decloaked the Nemesis first, and just at the moment when you would expect the sound of a hundred locks there was silence. A rival third party alliance had formed a fleet, something that his own should have done by now, and warped in just before the decloak.  
Nobody had targeted him in the seconds that had passed and so he quickly microwarped and cloaked and began sailing through the crossfire between fleets. Behind him the vexor auto-decloaked and was quickly destroyed by the fast tackle frigates.  
By a stroke of luck nothing else came close to bumping him and he made it out into open space.  
He engaged the warp drive but not toward the alliance jump bridge in this system. It was a gamble again but if he were to keep his luck and make it past to more gate camps along the pipe he could use another jump bridge that would take him further out of Wicked Creek space and closer to New Eden.  
His ship slid into another ping above the stargate and again he waited for a hapless lemming pilot, of which there was always an abundance.  
He made it along the pipe and took the alliance jump bridge away from full frantic solar system s to one quiet and empty. He had no further need of his alliance status now in truth, as he had no intention of taking the jump bridges back. And so as he engaged his warp drive again directly for the nearest gate he brought up his personal sheet and clicked the option to leave the corporation he had been with for some years. After manually dropping all of his diplomatic privileges the action was complete, and for the first time in years he was now red status to everyone.  
As he slowed out of warp a new anxiety came over him that anyone and everyone he would encounter at these gates would now be a threat, and as he passed through to the next system along the route to New Eden he came across one.  
Just one interceptor, a Taranis that sat waiting for him to decloak. It released a light drone at its side, indicating that the pilot meant business. Rothan obliged.  
He decloaked and set to orbit at 20 km clicking one cycle of the microwarp to close the distance. He targeted the ship first and locked it down with EWAR remote sensor dampeners. There was no need for a warp disruptor draining on the capacitor. It was do or die now.  
He plsit his torpedo bays setting two to the interceptor and one to the drone. A lucky shot might catch the drone and take it out but probably not given its speed.  
Slowly the ships orbiting each other began to chip away at each other's shield and then armour, spinning around in a dance that brought them closer and closer to the gate.  
The interceptor pilot was part of nulli secunda alliance and so he would already be calling for help through his own intel channels. As usual it was all about timing.  
Both ships lost their armour and began eating into the final layer of defence, the hull. Alerts squealed at Rothan but he remained calm, glancing at the cargo bay and the billions in isk he was carrying.  
As they moved ever closer to the gate Rothan noticed a fire as the gate lit up. Whoever it was may not be red to the interceptor but would definitely be red to Rothan. Whoever they were they had passed through and would now se what was going on on this side of the gate.  
The interceptor exploded as two more assault frigates decloaked. They had come to help their friend but it was too late, as Rothan was already recloaking and engaging warp drive.  
He bombed through them as the winds of warp took hold and then he was flying in the arms of that subspace hurricane.  
At the next gate he wasted no time and passed through. The next few systems were mostly empty and the gates were devoid of all activity. He eventually made it to the end of his route and saw that familiar sight of the Eve-Gate, the cataclysmic implosion of a worm hole that had trapped them here in this unknown part of the universe thousands of years ago.  
This solar system, New Eden housed the bright white cosmic mess and so suffered from numerous strange interferences in scanners and electronic warfare. It was the perfect place to cloak up and wait. He warped to an ice-belt and cloaked there before any rats could show up, and sat in the mostly powerless ship as it spun like a dead fish in the ocean.  
He saw now that mail was coming in thick and fast from his old alliance, mostly from the leaders including his friend, Gillitt. Arguments would be raging and fingers pointing, but such was the atmosphere of failure he was keen to leave behind.  
There were a number of options open to him now, options he had negotiated in secret during the past few months. He chose one, and sent the application to join.  
The mails were still coming in, along with a request to join private messages. He declined them all, and minimised all other communications windows.

He decided to wait in silence. His application to join what would have been a red corporation and alliance just minutes ago, could take a while, or could even be declined. If he were to be declined by all of the few available options to him he would be left out in the cold, unable to get involved in anything productive ever again.  
He waited and waited.  
"Come on, come on…" he muttered.  
Out of boredom he decided to do a quick d-scan, to see what if anything was floating in space here in the origin system of their races. There was nothing noticeable but for a cargo container that he could see on the far side of the icefield, and probably didn't contain anything of real importance, at least compared to what he was carrying in his own hold. The only other reading was a blank description and name of a carrier class ship. After clicking d-scan a second time he found that it was gone, possibly indicating that the ship was moving, or that it was some kind of interference from the worm hole. There was nobody else in local chat so he remained calm.  
He waited an hour more, until just as his eyes were about to glaze he saw something moving far beyond the ice glaciers. It was far away but glowing bright enough to get a clear idea of its size. It was medium sized carrier at least but looked to be oval in shape, and glowing like some clichéd ufo hoax. It was moving very quickly from side to side in a flat figure of eight, faster than he'd ever seen a cruiser size ship move, or frigate for that matter.  
Against his better judgement he clicked to move slowly closer to it, dragged slower by the cloaking device.  
As he got closer the ship began to circle one of the bergs of ice, something that if you were to do in any other ship would be certainly noticed and attract the attention of the local rat-criminals. And like clockwork 3 Serpentis battleships warped in and began closing on the much smaller orb.  
Rothan was safe behind the cloak so long as he didn't get close enough to be bumped, and so could move allot closer than he was now.  
Already he could see inside the clear wall of the ship, someone was in there as clear skinned and translucent as the rest of the technology of the craft. The wires connecting it looked to be organic, like whoever this pilot was their kind had evolved to become one with their ships.  
Was this what had become of the Jovian? The Jove Empire had grown to strength along with the other four races of man, after the Eve gate had collapsed and trapped them away from their homeworld, Earth. Their society had collapsed too and had grown from scratch on separate worlds, eventually rediscovering space travel and each other. The Jove empire had however cut itself off from the rest of them and had grown mysteriously ever since.  
The rats drew close to the craft and began opening fire, but the missiles and lasers hit an impossibly strong forcefield, as the pilot looked up at them casually from within, with its tiny pin prick eyes and feral smile.  
The oval ship emitted an almost annoyed series of electronic honks before three organic tendrils spat out from the ship and latched onto the three battleships. They thrusted to get away but to no avail, and a moment later the ships began to crumble and dissolve through a combination of vibrations and liquids pumped along the translucent tubes.  
A few moments later Rothan watched in horror as the half dissolved bodies of the Serpentis pirates slid along the tubes toward the pilot. A moment later and two heavily injured men were clambering to get away from the pilot in the bubble of fluid as he ate the third. Rothan watched as all three were devoured and with a series of honks a tendril to the rear of the ship spat out the bones and waste.  
The ship flickered as if satisfied somehow and then raced away in a warp without acceleration. It hadn't gone in the direction of Jove space, it had gone towards the gate, and so maybe Earth.  
If this is what had become of the human race on Earth then they may be in for some problems should they decide to invade in mass.  
With a slight despair he looked away from the swirling silent vortex, just as the comms panel gave a tweet. Rothan opened the corporation tab of his console and saw that he had been invited to join Darkness of Despair alliance. He accepted, knowing that such an old and proactive alliance would never be defeated. His comms panels lit up blue again and he set course for their deployment system.  
An hour or so later and he was in a new hangar, and a new set of quarters. He was greeted there by members of his new corporation, who had come down to greet him, already ready to fly out in a fleet.


End file.
